We Were Never Alone

How a Grenadian Nurse and a Biafran Brigadier Helped Raise Murtala Muhammed’s Children Across Continents—After a War

This Thursday, we begin the formal funeral rites for Mrs. Joan Eze, a nurse practitioner from Grenada who became family to us in every sense that mattered. She was married to Mazi Anthony Eze of Arochukwu—our dear Uncle Tony—who passed away nearly ten years ago. In remembering her, I find myself drawn back to the piece I began writing after Uncle Tony’s death but never finished. It is time to complete it now, and to honour them both.

Aunty Joan was one of many Caribbean women whose families moved to the UK in the post-war years as part of the Windrush generation. They left their islands in search of opportunity—armed with crisp certificates, strong faith, and the courage to build new lives in a country that, I have since learned, often greeted them with indifference—or worse. But Aunty Joan, a nurse practitioner, met that world with grace. Her journey from Grenada to the wards of London hospitals, and eventually into our lives, was marked not just by hard work, but by extraordinary generosity of spirit.

Together with Uncle Tony—who had come to Britain from Nigeria for education—they built a life that would become a sanctuary for us. My siblings and I were children in boarding school in the UK, far from home and the comfort of family. My mother, under enormous pressure and faced with the very real threat of my being married off at the age of sixteen by some of the more traditional members of my father’s extended family, made the heartbreaking decision in 1979, to send me to boarding school abroad. It was an act of courage and resilience that laid the foundation for the academic and professional achievements of her and Murtala’s children—and now, respectfully, for their grandchildren too.

At that time, sending children abroad was not the lifestyle statement it is sometimes seen as today. It was a cultural rupture, a sacrifice. And for me, having lost my father at the age of twelve, it was especially difficult. But it was Aunty Joan and Uncle Tony who stood in loco parentis during those early, uncertain years. They became the stability—especially for my late brother Zack and I—in an often unfamiliar world. They showed up when many couldn’t; though not related by blood, they became our family in the truest sense.

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If I reflect truthfully, we spent more of those formative years under their care than with many of our own relations. This is not to diminish the love of my father’s family—far from it. Their affection remained, even if tempered by geography, circumstance, and the emotional aftershocks of loss. Although I must admit, surprisingly a few felt a quiet grievance, perhaps rooted in unspoken expectations unmet. In time, distance—and differing understandings of duty, entitlement, and memory—reshaped our bonds. But in the rhythms of daily life abroad, it was these two remarkable individuals who were my constant presence—steady, nurturing, and profoundly parental. I say this not in comparison, but in gratitude—to honour the quiet ways love makes itself known, choosing us even before we realise we need it.

Uncle Tony was a quiet force. When Zack—spirited, energetic, and navigating the turbulence of teenage life—once ran up an eye-watering phone bill during a summer holiday in their home, my mother insisted he work to repay every penny. She was fierce in principle. But Uncle Tony quietly paid it. No lectures. Just love. When Zack was later shot by a friend in 1993—a tragedy that shattered our family—it was people like Uncle Tony and General TY Danjuma who held us together in grief. Their comfort was silent, but steady.

What makes it even more remarkable is that Uncle Tony—our Uncle Tony—had been a Brigadier on the Biafran side. He had proudly commanded the 12th Division in Biafra’s armed forces, just as my father had proudly commanded the Second Division as a Brigadier on the Nigerian side. They were both senior officers—each charged with decisive missions, each carrying the burden of war. He and my father trained together at Sandhurst, and indeed their friendship was forged there. But they would one day find themselves on opposite sides of that brutal conflict. And yet, after the war, they chose something greater. They chose friendship. Chose brotherhood. Chose to raise each other’s children. That, too, is legacy.

I began writing this op-ed after Uncle Tony died in 2016, but I couldn’t finish it then. Grief swallowed the words. It was his youngest son, Chukwuma Eze, who recently caused me to revive it—almost casually—when he reminded me that it was my father who gave him his first bicycle in 1975. That one memory unlocked everything. A small gesture: a bike. But it spoke of something larger—mutual care, belief, responsibility. These friendships were never one-sided. They were deep and sustained.

My father never spoke much to us, his children, about the civil  war. But I came to learn that, even before the guns fell silent, he crossed back into Biafran territory—not for politics, but for people. He searched for my mother’s sisters—including her sister, now Senator Ireti Heebat Kingibe—as well as his friends who were trapped behind the lines. He helped them to safety. Gave what little he could to help friends rebuild. He never advertised it. It was simply what needed to be done. That, too, is part of this legacy.

It was these simple acts of empathy that would matter most in the critical years after his assassination. They became the quiet scaffolding that held us up through the hardest times.

– Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode is the eldest daughter of Late General Murtala Muhammed. This piece is a personal reflection on the quiet love, friendship, and resilience that sustained her family in the years after his death.

In those years, in that distant country, they filled the gaps. My mother struggled financially—especially after she had sent me to school abroad. Her businesses suffered under import bans. As a woman who had built a successful trade early on, it was devastating. It took her several years to find renewed success in real estate and, later, in her passion for horticulture. In the meantime, the Federal Government scholarships promised to us were delayed—and in some cases, never honoured at all.

But we were never truly alone. Because when systems failed, people did not.

Those who surrounded us rallied, especially with emotional support—not out of pity, but because they understood what it meant to belong to one another. Uncle Tony and Aunty Joan, yes—but also Mr. Echi Onyesoh, Mr. Brown Madiebo, and Alhaji Ahmadu Yaro. Men of different backgrounds and tongues, yet united by something deeper: a postwar brotherhood built around my father. None of them related to us by blood, yet each of them stood in the space where love and loyalty lived. These were friendships forged in the aftermath of war—deliberate, resilient, and enduring.

Indeed, while my father was alive, collectively, their care had extended across boundaries. They supported each other’s businesses. Looked after each other’s children. They played together. They mourned together. They showed up for each other—for weddings, for naming ceremonies, for hospital visits, for ordinary days—and for unspeakable ones: the sudden deaths, the silences that follow loss.

Now, almost 50 years to the day since my father became Head of State, I find myself reflecting not just on the weight of his office, but on the quiet decisions that shaped our lives. When each of them died—Uncle Echi Onyesoh, Uncle Brown Madiebo, Baba Ahmadu Yaro, Uncle Tony, and now Aunty Joan—it felt like losing my father again. Because they were all pieces of him. Of the story we shared.

This is not just a tribute. It is a testimony to the kind of love that doesn’t seek recognition. To the kind of solidarity that carried us across continents. To the kind of friendships that made an exiled child feel at home. In this season of remembrance, I choose not only to recall what was lost, but to honour what was quietly built.

So in remembering Chukwuma’s first bike, I remember that love and friendship are never one-directional. As we bury Aunty Joan this week, I remember Uncle Tony too.

And I remember—no matter how hard it was at times—we were never alone.

And we never will be.

In remembering them both, I honour the many people—named and unnamed—who helped support us, and in doing so, helped carry our father’s legacy forward.